Review: Nuking Alaska: Notes of an Atomic Fugitive

As fate would have it, I was assigned Nuking Alaska to review a few days after watching Oppenheimer. And like the rest of the world, I feel Christopher Nolan should be praised for that film’s candid and vital message about the checkered history of nuclear weapons. But I must admit, I feel just as well informed and conscious of the concerns around nuclear conflict from reading Nuking Alaska as I did from watching Oppenheimer. Added to this is Peter Dunlap-Shohls creative brilliance that spills from every page , making Nuking Alaska as entertaining and engaging as anything you’ll see on the big screen!

Depictions of the cold war have mostly been set in Washington or Moscow, often with some reference to Cuba & Los Alamos. However, the existential threat of nuclear obliteration at the heart of the cold war stretched worldwide. Nuking Alaska tells the story of the complicated and somewhat surprising involvement the Alaskan people had in the troubled history of nuclear weaponry development.Beginning with the story of the largest ever recorded earthquake on American soil damaging a nuclear warhead storage facility. Nuking Alaska goes on to show all the significant events that reveal decades-long back-and-forth struggles between rural town folk and the various big players fixed on using the rugged Alaskan shores to test and develop their dangerous weapons. Nuking Alaska is told from the point of view of the writer/artist, and Alaskan native, Peter Dunlap-Shohl, who lived through these lesser-known cold war events. This creates an engaging reading experience, like being told an epic real-life story next to a roaring fireplace. Each separate event is expertly told with its own complete narrative that connects to the book’s overall arc.

Dunlap-Shohl uses his cartoonist expertise to explore the full array of Alaska’s scenic beauty. Images of cliff edges, school classrooms, fishing boats and mountain tops combine in a mosaic of delightful layouts that contrast with the raw and bold images of imposing nuclear warheads, stern-faced generals and nuclear waste. This subtle use of images used to convey the sometimes heart-wrenching emotion means what starts as s sleepy and charming comic strip quickly blossoms into a unique and poignant piece of sequential art that enchants with its approach to using images to convey the critical moments in the story.

Nuking Alaska is a thoughtful and eye-opening view into a lesser-known but essential piece of history.

SCORE:
5/5

by Peter Dunlap-Shohl
Publisher: Graphic Mundi